Chapter One: Undercover Savior

UNDERCOVER SAVIOR

A duke living a triple life.
A journalist who never backs down.
When a deadly conspiracy forces them together, they'll have to choose between duty and the truth that could destroy them both.

SAVIOR
Everything I am is built on lies. Duke, MI6 agent, sniper—masks I wear to serve the Crown. Until Sullivan. Her investigation threatens to expose not just international weapons deals, but my carefully constructed world. Now, I must choose: fulfill my duty by silencing her, or protect her and risk everything I've sworn to defend. The journalist who used to be my childhood crush might just become my undoing.

SULLIVAN
The story of my career has become a fight for survival. I thought I was exposing corporate weapons trading, but uncovering a conspiracy reaching to the Crown landed me under armed protection. My mysterious guardian has his own secrets—ones that could turn this deadly game into a personal betrayal. The deeper we dig, the more I realize the hardest choice isn't between life and death, but between the truth I've always served and the man I'm falling for.

CHAPTER ONE
—SULLIVAN—

There was a chance I’d win a Pulitzer for the story I’d been working on for the last six months, but I didn’t care about that. Exposing Eric Weber as the boggen minger—foul-smelling scumbag—he was, motivated me far more than accolades ever would.

Tomorrow, the offices of the media outlet I worked for would lock up for the holidays for all but late breaking-news stories. Which meant I’d no longer have access to the secure servers I relied on so heavily for my research, at least until after the beginning of the new year. It also meant my desk, as my editor typically referred to as a “muddle of epic proportions,” was worse than usual.

Scraps of paper where I’d jotted down random thoughts to follow up on were buried under days’ old cups containing beverages no longer discernible. That I didn’t give a fuck was only one reason my colleagues, which was far too nice a word to call them, avoided my corner of the office. Actually, my untidiness was what landed me at the desk shoved off in a windowless alcove.

That, along with my tenacity, had earned me the nickname, bulldog. It was meant to be insulting but I considered it high praise. As a result, I was more often called Bully than Sully—short for my first name, Sullivan—not that the two rhymed.

“Sully, my office, now,” barked Clive Edwards, my editor as well as a former recipient of the prestigious Pulitzer. He was also my mother’s brother. That my coworkers hadn’t figured out I was related to the boss spoke volumes about the caliber of reporters they were.

While some might cry nepotism, Uncle Clive had certainly never cut me any slack, nor was he responsible for my getting the job in the first place. I’d worked my way up by being the bulldog my colleagues called me.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered at his command, digging around for a notepad and pen before racing into his office before the door shut in my face.

“Where are you with the Tower-Meridian investigation?”

“Getting close, sir.”

He raised a brow. “That’s hardly an answer and you know it.” He leaned back in his chair and looked out at the view of Edinburgh Castle afforded by his corner office. “We’ve received a warning.”

My eyes scrunched as I processed what such a vague statement could mean. “Can you be more specific?”

“We kill the story or you suffer a similar fate.”

My eyes practically bulged out of my head. “They’ll kill me?”

“Essentially, yes.”

If there were ever a threat that would achieve the exact opposite response than intended, it was something like this. It nearly made me giddy. “I’m closer than I thought,” I said under my breath.

“Sullivan,” he warned.

“Look, what kind of investigative journalist would I be if a death threat deterred me?”

“A living one. Your mother made me promise—”

“Please don’t,” I whispered. I’d spent my entire life defending my inquisitive nature to my mum, starting as far back as I could remember.

“Your teacher complains that you disrupt his lessons with your constant questions,” she’d said after returning from a conference with the man. “It’s bad enough that we have to endure it here at home.”

While I didn’t remember his exact words, my father probably muttered something about letting me be before returning to the book he was reading.

I couldn’t recall a single time I’d seen him without a book in his hand or at least close by. I supposed I’d inherited his quest for knowledge, albeit from a different approach. I was an incessant question asker while he read voraciously.

“Tread carefully, Sullivan,” Clive said with a sigh, seemingly willing to drop the subject of my overbearing mother.

“Yes, sir,” I responded, standing and returning to my desk in a surprisingly empty office. Apparently, in the short time I’d been in with the boss, everyone else had cleared out early. Maybe I should as well. Would another hour or two of research really matter? Even if I stayed, I wouldn’t wrap this story up until after the first of the year.

I’d thrown away the worst of the trash cluttering my workspace, shoved the random scraps of paper into my computer bag, smashed them down in the bottom by jamming my laptop in the same compartment, and was about to turn my desktop PC off when an alert popped up on the screen.

“Eric Weber, infamous CEO of Tower-Meridian Consolidated, is rumored to be making a rare public appearance at this evening’s fundraiser at Edinburgh Castle,” read the chyron on the bottom of my screen.

Was he now? I dug through my desk drawer, frantically searching for my press badge. I’d so rarely used it that I wondered if it was even current.

“Yes!” I shouted when I found it beneath several file folders and what looked like a moldy piece of cardboard that had probably started out as pizza. I dumped it and the paper plate it was stuck to in the rubbish bin, grabbed my coat, and stuffed the badge and lanyard in the pocket. I was halfway to the lift when I heard my uncle holler my name.

“Sullivan,” he bellowed.

I hit the call button and spun around. “Good night, sir and happy Christmas,” I said, ducking into the lift as soon as the door opened.

“You best not be doing what I think you are,” I heard him say before his words were cut short by the doors closing.

Once home I scoured the internet for whatever I could find about tonight’s event.

“Young people’s trust,” I muttered in disgust, reading the list of charities the fundraiser supported. That a man I was certain funded both weapons and human trafficking would dare show his face at such an event sickened me.

While I had no intention of confronting him verbally—what would I say if I did—I certainly intended to make sure he knew I was there. And when I stared into his coal-black eyes, he’d see without any doubt that he didn’t scare me. Not one bit.

I’d spent thirty minutes searching for a place to park before giving in and forking over the fifty pounds at the gate in order to park in the valet lot.

While waiting for the attendant to appear where I was instructed to proceed, I felt around inside my bag for my press badge. “Where in the bloody hell did it go?” I muttered just as another car pulled up closer to the castle’s entrance and stopped. Given it was a limousine with darkened windows, there was at least a chance the person being transported was none other than the man I’d been investigating—Eric Weber.

Rather than continue waiting for the attendant to appear, I eased the door open and got out. When the press badge I’d been searching for, that had been on my lap apparently, fell to the ground, I knelt down to grab it. Seconds after I stood and brushed off my trousers, I froze.

“You were warned Miss Rivers,” a man’s voice said right before he put his hand over my mouth and the gun he held against my temple cocked.

The limousine sped off, leaving me alone with a man I was sure intended to kill me once it was far enough away. I always figured this would be the way I’d go— on the verge of the biggest story of my career, one that would take down a man as vile as I could imagine.

I held my breath, shut my eyes, and sighed. If this was how I’d die, I could at least take satisfaction in knowing I was right about the bloody bastard.

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